Apple opens Vietnamese subsidiary, enabling direct local sales for first time

Apple has quietly opened up its first subsidiary in Vietnam, a move which should allow direct sales to a burgeoning market, a report said on Thursday.

Apple Vietnam Limited Liability was established in Ho Chi Minh City on Oct. 28, according to an announcement seen by Reuters on the country's business registry website. The firm began with capital of 15 billion dong, or about $672,194.

In addition to selling electronics such as the iPhone, the company will be providing information technology, maintenance, and advising services.

Even though Apple has focused much of its recent attention on China, which saw revenues jump 99 percent year-over-year in the last quarter, Reuters noted that Vietnam has actually been one of the company's strongest performers relative to its size. Sales tripled there in the first half of 2014.

The country's cellphone market has meanwhile grown rapidly in recent years, jumping 26 percent between 2009 and 2013 to 124 million subscribers. By 2013, the number of Internet users had also topped a third of the country's population.

yes, but Android is just for the poor or step stone for iPhone until users can afford one. Talking about the country where 60% of population is under 30 and just like China, people are willing to spend 6-mo salary for an iPhone and always want the latest even though their primary usages are : Talk, Text and Social Networking...well Facebook primarily.

Some regions (Hong Kong, Macao, Kuwait, Gabon) have more than two subscriptions per person.

I'm guessing a lot of it comes from people having different phones for work and personal use. The numbers also include prepaid accounts that have been used in the last three months.

8 out of 10 people there don't use subscription but prepaid SIM which in turn get dumped after a few months to the point that they ran out of numbers, so they had to add 3-digit prefix to isolate cellular phones from home phone.